Peng Streamer Plane
Background After the nuclear war which devastated China, which turned the skies black with smoke and the ground green with JADE, any survivors were few and far between; as major cities were the main targets, the handful of survivors left behind were often those who had lived in remote villages, had fled their township when they saw the bombs coming their way, or had simply gotten lost, wandering through the hellish landscape in the hope of finding anyone else. Any pockets of survivors were cut off from the rest of the world; travel by land would take weeks over broken and hostile terrain, by which time the fallout would have finally reached them, and destroyed anyone living there. Travel by river was not a plausible solution, due to radioactive water killing anyone foolish enough to travel along it, several rivers having literally dried up from the heat of the atomic war, or villages simply not being near a major river. Finally, teleportation can only work if a point has been designated; randomly teleporting troops across an entire country without a good idea of the location needed would hardly be a good proposition, as half of the groups would land in a useless and deadly area, and the other half would land in several pieces over a three kilometer radius. Clearly, searching for survivors by air was the only plausible solution. The only problem was that no existing design was acceptable for the role. Using any traditional military aircraft would cause the survivors to flee, fearing that their area would become the next smoking atomic crater, and villagers had learnt to hide when helicopters flew past to avoid becoming collateral damage in the previous battles. What was required was an airborne vehicle that was not a helicopter and, at first glance at least, was obviously not a military vehicle. To this end, many designs were undertaken, and after several models, one was chosen as the best to fit the criteria required. The resultant aircraft was designed to be nonthreatening and aesthetically pleasing; it did not resemble an airplane so much as a sculpture or a paper cutting. It could fly for long durations without having to land, helping in the search for survivors. It had a large cargo hold for storage, and an efficient deployment system to drop leaflets detailing survival information, signalling devices, maps to safe locations, and Ge Gai counters to those it came across in its patrols. Finally, to send a message to those who saw it that this was not coming to kill them, the new aircraft had two characters in large, friendly writing written on it, which gave it its name: 朋 友. Friend. Of course, the Atomic Kingdom also noted another useful niche for the Peng in their army. They had recently developed small 'packages' of antimatter, small enough to be dropped en masse on an area, but currently had no way to do so. The Peng's delivery system for its survival equipment was perfect for the job. In fact, the Peng fitted this secondary role so well that the only change made to the idea was adding colourful paper 'streamers' to the antimatter packages and colouring said packages bright red to make them easier to see, after a squad of clones didn't notice the packages and were unexpectedly dissolved. Naming the strips 窗花 after the paper cutting the Peng resembled, and the antimatter packages 红包 after a New Year's red envelope, the Peng was cleared for military duty as well. The Peng has served both roles with incredibly effectiveness, saving large amounts of refugees one moment and causing large enemy casualties the next. In fact, it is not uncommon nowadays for a Peng to finish patrol, teleport back home, do a quick engine check, and immediately fly back into battle with only a minute's delay to mark its dual nature. Category:Units